Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Oddities

Since ODDITIES is already in their fourth season, I feel I'm a little late to the game on singing their praises. I had been meaning to take a look at it for a while, but finally started over the weekend after an insane night of coolant dumping out of my car, fumes inside the car, getting the car towed, getting a ride back home, etc. As my sister and I sat eating a really late dinner of Mexican food, she brought the show up again and I popped it on. It would be no exaggeration to say that I was hooked from the very first episode. It's like crack for nerdy weirdos.

If you haven't heard of it, ODDITIES is about Obscura, an antiques and oddities shop in New York's East Village. It stars co-owners Mike and Evan as well as their buyer/osteologist Ryan. The shop has a wealth of interesting, strange and creepy objects, but sometimes their customers are the most fascinating of all. You can imagine the types of people a store like this would attract. I don't mean that in a negative way though, since... I -AM- the type of person a store like this would attract.

During episodes you get to see customers coming into the shop either browsing, with a specific item in mind, or with an object of their own to sell to Obscura. You also tag along when the staff goes out to either hunt down specific items, or to explore collections for potential new purchases. While there is obviously a strong element of the fantastic, macabre, strange, etc. to the show, what makes it more than just a novelty is the fact that shop staff (and their customers) are so intelligent, knowledgeable and passionate about their trade. What I mean is: You learn stuff. A lot of stuff. You like... Science? Circus acts? Historical medicine? Mummies? Osteology? Biology? Taxidermy? Dead things and the things associated with them? Guess what: You'll learn about all of it. Maybe in one episode.

It's not for everyone of course, but I guarantee that if you're going to like it at all, that first episode will grab you just like it grabbed me. I now have an amazing trifecta of favorite educational TV shows: Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, and Oddities. Set. For. Life.

If you're all swanky and have better cable than I do, you can watch ODDITIES on The Science Channel. If you're a media glutton like me and have Netflix, you can catch seasons on there (and wait with bated breath for the new ones to be released). If you live in NYC, you can just get your ass down to Obscura (and give me a wave if you make it on an episode)! If, on the other hand, you're in the Chicago area, you can get your antiques & oddities fix from a local store called Woolly Mammoth.